Nordic Variations

This Friday, 7pm at City Hall

A mini-Nordic tour by the BBC Philharmonic at this Friday’s concert in the Sheffield International Concert Season at the City Hall makes a detour to Russia to take in some Tchaikovsky – his Mozart-modelled Variations on a Rococo Theme!The theme was actually his own invention and he wrote the piece at the request of a Moscow Conservatory colleague, Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, who provided considerable technical input.When the work was completed in March 1877 the German cellist re-arranged the order of the variations, jettisoning one in the process, before premiering it. Tchaikovsky, in a mood of artistic insecurity, turned a blind eye.Many years later the composer’s original version was discovered and published but most cellists still use Fitzenhagen’s version, as the highly thought of Leonard Eischenbroich, another German cellist, does when he performs the work with the BBC Phil.Interesting to note, though, that champions of the original include such notable names as Steven Isserlis and Julian Lloyd Webber!Probably the least-known work being performed is the First Symphony by Denmark’s best-known composer, Carl Nielsen. First performed in 1894, its generally confident demeanour, restless energy and sense of drama rendered it an instant success.This year sees the 150th anniversary of Nielsen’s birth, as it does Sibelius who contributes a much better known work; in fact, an extremely familiar one, to Friday’s proceedings: Finlandia!Its origins may or may not be known, but here goes.It began life in 1899 as Finland Awakes, the last of seven pieces Sibelius wrote to accompany a series of tableaux depicting chapters from Finnish history, which formed both a benefit concert for newspaper staff and a covet protest against increasing Russian dominance.It came about when a proposition to make Russian the country’s official language and limit the power of the Finnish parliament was opposed by the said newspaper so it was shut down in 1898.Sibelius extracted and adapted Finlandia in 1900 as a stand-alone piece but to avoid Russian censorship it got performances under numerous other titles. One of the most famous seems to have been Happy Feelings at the Awakening of Finnish Spring!Also, to clear up a popular misconception, Sibelius didn’t pinch a traditional Finnish folk melody for the work’s famous hymn tune. He wrote it!The concert – conducted by a Finn: John Storgårds, the BBC orchestra’s principal guest conductor – starts in Norway with a ‘selection’ from the incidental music Grieg composed for Ibsen’s bizarre play Peer Gynt.In the event, there has been no foraging among the 26 items Grieg penned to find something obscure. The selection consists of six pieces from the two four-movement suites the composer cobbled with one piece from each dropped.